


Elixir Vitae

by Brightwinged



Category: Tales of Zestiria
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Sharing a Body, Smut, endgame spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-24
Updated: 2016-01-24
Packaged: 2018-05-15 22:22:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5802364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brightwinged/pseuds/Brightwinged
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sorey, Mikleo, and the fine art of private armatization.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Elixir Vitae

They reach an understanding about it, early on.

It’s a burst of bad weather that does it, catching them out on the road from Pendrago. Dezel and Mikleo feel the shift in wind and cloud, but there’s no breather between groups of hellions and no good place to set up camp. They’re forced to press forward until they reach town, and the deluge hits when they’re still a few miles out.

Rose and Sorey are gasping with cold almost instantly, soaked to the skin even through their practical layers. All four seraphim keep an eye on them as they dart in and out of their vessel-spaces to fight by their sides, but it’s Edna who comes up with the solution.

“Meebo.” She finds him leaned against a wall inside Sorey, catching his breath. Even there it’s chilled; somewhere down the corridor, Lailah sneezes seven times in a row. He winces when Edna digs her parasol’s tip brutally into his side. “You and me, we’re armatizing the rest of this trip.”

“What?” 

She rolls her eyes. “Are you a waterboy or aren’t you? Do something useful, and I’ll keep it off the Squire my way. Let’s go.”

They go, and she turns out to be right. Once he cloaks Sorey all the water in the air becomes their plaything and their weapon, their movements even more fluid and the cold only bracing. Edna doesn’t have the same power, but she handles mud with even more ease than dry earth, controlled walls and waves of it always blocking blows and keeping the rain off Rose.

By the time they reach Lastonbell in the evening, Rose and Edna are mostly dry and Sorey and Mikleo are still wet from head to toe, their long hair plastered down flat, enjoying every minute of it now that they’re not fighting. Sorey’s so uncomplicatedly happy for once that when they reach the inn and everyone looks at them, Mikleo shakes their head on impulse. 

_We’ll head in a bit later,_ he says, hushing Sorey’s little sputter of surprise with a mental finger. _If you don’t mind booking both rooms..._

“Yeah, yeah, consider it handled,” Rose says, waving it off; Edna snorts at the same time, and Lailah obligingly drags Dezel out of their vessel before he can protest. “Just don’t stay out too late, kids!”

They walk off together down the street. _Thanks_ and _don’t thank me,_ they say at the exact same time, and Mikleo’s sideways smile blooms into Sorey’s laughter.

It’s been a while since they’ve had time alone, together or apart. Sorey skims over and splashes through the growing puddles once they’re back out in the street, still giddy with the ease of it. Mikleo catches them when they finally threaten to slip on the cobblestones, grumbling, and Sorey laughs again and leans their blue-white-gold arms on a nearby railing, taking in the view. There’s no one out to see a wet Shepherd talking to himself, which is all to the good, but Mikleo gets the distinct feeling that Sorey wouldn’t care even if there were.

“Can you tell how long this will last?” Sorey asks. It still startles Mikleo a tiny bit when he speaks aloud in their armatization, outside of a fight; the way his voice resonates more deeply in their shared chest and lungs, pleasantly not-quite-familiar.

Mikleo settles calm and still under Sorey’s skin, almost dreamy against his excitement as he casts his magic outward. Rain continues to pound down, hiding Lastonbell in a heavy grey mist, blurring its outlines. It’s eager to tell him what he asks for. _It’ll go on most of the night. Should be dry by the time we’re up, though I can’t speak for how strong the wind will be._ Their mouth quirks. _Good for everyone else, but…_

“Yeah.” Sorey stretches out, sleek as a seal. “Maybe it’s weird to find this kind of thing fun, but...it is, you know? If it’s just like this...”

 _It’s not_ that _weird. I like it too._ Mikleo reaches out and catches a little water just above their palm, a miniature roiling current, just to feel Sorey’s bright gratification at the sight. _I don’t think I’d want to try it with anyone but you, though._

That gets a laugh out of Sorey, soft and surprised. “Anyone but me? Really?”

 _I know you almost as well as I know me, so it’s easy._ Mikleo is matter-of-fact about it, letting the current collapse into a smooth sphere and then flow over their fingers and away. As he does, the underlying question in his mind slips into Sorey’s before he can catch it: _But how is it for you? Is it the same with the others as it is with me…?_

“Not really,” Sorey says, taking no offense. There’s a silence, in which Mikleo twinges with worry anyway, but then Sorey pushes little threads of memory at Mikleo to fill the void, grateful at how much easier they are than words. Words don’t do the feeling of armatizing with Lailah and Dezel and Edna justice anyway: the rush of hot or swift or bracing steady energy; the flush of teamwork and meeting a common goal; the mutual trust they and Sorey place in each other to move body and power, to enhance each other’s strengths and cover each other’s weaknesses. Armatizing with the others is always a joy and a gift like it is with Mikleo, he conveys, but not one of them approaches it the same way. And the rest of them always do it to support him in a fight, and not just…

 _To feel like this,_ Mikleo supplies, warmed through in their chest and the pit of their belly. _I think I get it._

“You’re Mikleo.” Sorey’s so sincere in that moment, so trusting, that Mikleo’s heart squeezes. “It’s you I want to do this with, too.” 

They’re quiet after that, full of little internal touches and thoughts; purely peaceful, feeling good together under the rain.

-

Between one disaster and the next, they don’t have much time to themselves again until very near the end. A few nights at inns, that’s all, when they can afford to get the extra rooms, because Sorey hates asking the others to sleep somewhere else unless he’s sure they’ll be comfortable. They’re all tired too, and Sorey grows unhappier the more war and politics and hellions entangle themselves around him, even if he’s quiet about it. 

Mikleo gives Sorey familiarity when they’re together because he needs it, reading in bed with him, healing him sometimes when his weakened eye starts to ache from strain. They sleep together as they did in Elysia, sometimes with fumbling hands and quiet mouths on each other’s skin, mostly just comforting each other with company in the dark. No matter how it goes Sorey wraps both arms tight around him in the end every time, his face and breath soft and warm against Mikleo’s shoulder. 

On those nights Mikleo always strokes Sorey’s hair until Sorey falls asleep. If Sorey’s forgotten to remove his earrings Mikleo unhooks them for him once he's sure he's settled. He’ll place them on the bedside table, tucked inside the ring of his circlet, before he closes his own eyes. Little rituals, simple promises that things will go back to normal, sometime. Mikleo lets himself hope they'll come true.

They don’t.

It all comes full circle in Lastonbell once more, the two of them speaking at the same railing but under a different sort of sky. Stars pool brilliant overhead, and Sorey’s talking about them and about home, beginnings. 

“But even with Alisha, you had to cut off your senses and hold your…” It catches Mikleo off-guard, how fast the conversation goes sideways, and his face falls before he can stop it. “Oh. I see.”

Sorey’s kept his eyes fixed on the stars. “Yeah. If I let myself become a vessel for Maotelus, and shut off all my senses, we might be able to spread that power throughout the entire continent of Glenwood. If it works--and that’s a big if--the Squire ought to be able to wield power like mine.”

The good thing about the plan is that it’s as sound as any plan for wiping out corruption and malevolence wholesale could ever hope to be, which is not particularly sound. The bad thing about the plan, so far, has been that to fulfill it, Mikleo and the other seraphim have determined to give up their lives to open the way, which is very bad, and something he’s sure they’ve all tried not to brood over too much. But now--this. _This._ Sorey.

“By bonding with Maotelus, you’ll be abandoned in time. It could take years...centuries.” Mikleo can’t look at him, and his hands are clenched hard at his sides. “And even if humans appear who can see and talk to seraphim, there’s no guarantee they’ll choose the path of coexistence.”

“I believe in them,” Sorey says, and makes it sound so simple.

“What about your dream? Weren’t you going to go off exploring ruins around the world?” _Even without me, you should still--_

They finally lock eyes then, and Sorey’s are bright like nothing else he’s ever seen. “My dream will live on, so long as I don’t forget.” _So long as I don’t forget you._

Mikleo takes one deep breath, then another. It’s the closest Sorey can get to promising him aloud, he understands; not even as bad as his own recent failure on the sunlit cliffs outside Elysia. “Very well,” he says at last, and holds out his hand, fingers relaxed, so their wrists can brush. 

But then Sorey’s mouth opens, _thank you Mikleo_ outlined on his tongue, and while Mikleo can accept their fates without doubt and malevolence in his heart, he doesn’t know if he can stand Sorey’s gratitude for it right then. Not while he feels so ungrounded. 

He puts a finger to Sorey’s lips, like and unlike their first time here. The expression on Sorey’s face goes soft in remembrance, and around them the world slips, slides, stops. 

“Let’s head in,” Sorey says instead, and Mikleo nods, just once.

-

Someone’s set a basin in the corner, left a copper kettle of water to warm by the fire, made sure their window’s locked against the prying wind. In his last moment of wholly clear thought for the night, Mikleo sees these things and finds them kind.

Sorey’s kissing him almost before they’ve shut the door, scrabbling blindly for the bolt with one hand. Mikleo reaches down to draw it and twines his fingers with Sorey’s instead, grinds up against him until the press of cloth and leather and metal still separating them is unbearable, nearly tears the Shepherd’s cloak trying to pull it off and just have Sorey as he is, freed of the trappings that weigh him down for tonight. He can’t quite manage, and it’s Sorey who finally makes a low noise in his throat and shifts back, shrugging it off and away. 

But that leaves them staring at each other, Sorey’s eyes wide and his lips wet and bruised, Mikleo’s own heart pounding, and it isn’t enough. The world’s narrowed down to the two of them. Tonight is all theirs and tomorrow everything they are will fall into calamity, eternity, and in the face of that their usual closeness is wonderful but it is _not enough._

Mikleo frames Sorey’s jaw with his fingertips, tracks the movement of his throat as he swallows. “Sorey,” he murmurs. “Use my name.”

Sorey looks startled -- concerned -- wanting. “Are you sure? It’s not...we’ve never…”

“We’re not going to get another chance.” The sentiment comes out raw, but it’s a relief to have out in the open, too. There are other thoughts crowding Mikleo’s mind with it in that moment, how he wants them to feel all of each other as much as they can, and how if Sorey’s going to sleep and then wake up alone, he should at least dream good dreams. Sorey takes the point and keeps him from having to say more out loud, mouth hungry on Mikleo’s until they’re both starved for air, steering them backward with his hands on Mikleo’s hips.

“Luzrov Rulay,” Sorey breathes, tumbling them together and onto the bed.

Armatization still makes of them a graceful thing, and they land in a smooth sprawl over the mattress rather than an ungainly heap, robes spread out around them. The bright flow of their power shouldn’t blend with arousal so easily but it does, it _does_ , a hot-cold shock up their spine and through their veins that makes them arch and groan. 

It’s a good start but one that undoes them for a minute, both of them trying to put their hands everywhere at once, to touch and to escalate, fighting each other enough that they manage only a sharp, spasmodic clutch at the sheets. Sorey yields control once they’re together again, long enough for Mikleo to stretch out comfortably and tug their collar open. 

The cloth of the armatus runs like silk through their fingers, its counterweights heavy as steel. Their joining’s present in the warp and weft of it too, if to a lesser extent than their body, and they shudder every time Mikleo unhooks a clasp or a belt, feel it more than they should when he works their arms loose from the tight sleeves. It takes all his patience to manage the pants and boots, their eyes shut so he can concentrate, Sorey’s restrained need to touch pulsing against him like a second heartbeat.

 _I think,_ Mikleo manages, squirming free of the last of it, letting Sorey know he can stop holding back, _it’s a bad idea to just drop these on the floor._

“So don’t.” Sorey settles them back into themselves, on the softest part of the heap. “It’ll be okay if we just...” He finally skates their fingertips up one side of their ribs, both of them gasping with Mikleo’s sensitivity. “... _nngh._ ” 

He pushes trust into their longing in lieu of kissing Mikleo’s forehead to soothe them down, a tangled blending mess of _this feels good, I want more_ and _take it easy, we have time._ It lets them both relax into their hands with a shared exhale. They’re touching together, just gentle for now over their stomach and sides and chest, and both of them are familiar with each other’s bodies but nothing’s prepared them for this. Mikleo knows Sorey likes it when he curls his nails against his collarbone and drags them down, but he’s never felt the little thrill of pleasurable pain it causes, the way it goes right to their groin. Sorey’s intimately familiar with how Mikleo’s hips roll when he traces them, their smooth upward curve, but he’s never felt the slow coil of heat that causes that movement. He’s never heard the hungry little thoughts it sparks off in Mikleo’s head either: _yes, there, yes, Sorey, come on_ , and he follows Mikleo’s urging, entwines with him more tightly, and he’s drawing them--

Deeper, and there’s sweat slicking the planes and hollows of their body as they squirm, starting to soak into the cloth against their back and the soft, improbable length of their hair. They can feel it all over, a different sort of caress. Mikleo’s felt this before but Sorey hasn’t, and Mikleo isn’t used to filtering it through Sorey’s body, isn’t used to the way Sorey reaches for more, trailing moisture down the hollow of their throat, the tensing muscles of their stomach, the soft insides of their spread thighs. He brings their hand up afterward and Mikleo curls one finger into their mouth to indulge him before he needs to ask, then a second, tongue working against the sensitive pads and built-up sword callus. Their skin tastes warm and salt and good and Sorey’s moaning aloud. Mikleo shudders, swallows hard, and tugs them--

Deeper, and that bright hot-cold current’s running fast through their blood and blooming sharp on their skin, both of them breathless and drunk on each other’s unfamiliarity and wonder. It’s Sorey who draws their legs wide apart and Mikleo who guides their free arm down but it’s both of them who wrap their hand around their cock, draw it up the underside in one long lazy synchronized stroke, rocking up into the movement. It’s aching pleasure, the simplest kind of all, skin on skin, precome slicking their palm, letting them glide smoother, harder under their touch. Both of them are crying out, Sorey soft and muffled, Mikleo loud and wordless inside their head, their fingers still stretching their mouth open and full, their knees drawing up. Their skin’s flushed and wet, hands wet, erection wet, all their muscles working as they thrust up with their whole body, and both of them slide--

 _Deeper,_ everything cascading, boundaries blurring, their unsaid complex wants clamoring and resounding off each other with all the force of their short lifetimes and shared dreams: their need to not lose each other, to not stop exploring and existing in this strange divided beautiful malevolent world together. They could take down the last barriers between them, they realize dimly, become someone and something entirely new, joined together mind and body and soul and perhaps cut free from what lies ahead. But that too is too much loss ( _we can’t, we want to follow this through, and we don't want to not be_ us _anymore_ ) and in the end they reach back for physical desire instead, that bright clean thread something to hold onto in the torrent, to brace each other up.

For a moment there’s a sharp and lurid image in their head, the last of Mikleo’s doubts: what it would look like if a human somehow walked in and saw Sorey on the bed alone and flushed and straining -- but then Sorey adds the shameless truth of Mikleo into that image, buried hard inside Sorey, Sorey’s legs wrapped around him, the two of them completing each other as they always have, and then they’re both arching off the bed, love and need and memory pushing their hips higher, their voices louder, and all thoughts and doubts and fears are carried away at last, orgasm bearing them up on its wave.

-

Somewhere in the long daze afterward, the armatization wears off. Mikleo comes to in his own body, sprawled over Sorey’s chest, both of them a dreadful, wonderful, blessedly still-undressed mess. Sorey’s wrapped both arms around him; when Mikleo reaches up to touch his cheek with the back of one hand, he opens his eyes and smiles. 

“Well, I’m impressed.” Mikleo’s tone is very dry, but he ruins the effect by grinning back at Sorey, enormous. 

Sorey’s smile broadens a little more in return, and he reaches up to brush Mikleo’s bangs back from his forehead. “Me too.” 

Sorey’s the one to remove Mikleo’s circlet tonight and put it on the table, almost reverently careful, but he ducks his head afterward to let Mikleo at his earrings as usual. Mikleo feels boneless and strange in a good way, not quite readjusted to being alone in his head and body and a little sad for it, but utterly satisfied. 

They still need to clean up, and in the end Sorey musters the energy to get up first, wriggling out from under Mikleo. He clambers backwards off the bed, looking at Mikleo instead of where he's stepping, and trips over something with a little yelp and a loud clatter, catching at the edge of the mattress. Mikleo grabs at him too with a sharp noise of surprise, and they both look down.

“Oh,” Sorey says, after a pause. “So _that’s_ where our bow went.”

Their laughter rings out against the night.

**Author's Note:**

> “I’m going to write some dumb armatization porn in the rain,” I thought. “It’ll be cute and pointless and sweet,” I thought.
> 
> This happened instead: still cute and sweet in places (hopefully!), but also a lot more fraught underneath.
> 
> While I’m aware that Mikleo actually tells/implies to Sorey that he’ll wait for him to wake up in the game, this version of the conversation seems pretty plausible as well, since the seraphim had no way to know they’d survive the final attack.


End file.
